Lucy left Kyle with a soft double tap to his chest as though telling the boy she would be right back. Maggie was struck by the intimacy of the gesture. She’d watched dozens of medical examiners, coroners, and pathologists in her ten years as a federal agent and during her forensic fellowship. She believed it took a special personality to work with the dead, to slice tissue, pluck off maggots, suck out brains, and section apart organs, reducing the human body to bits and pieces all in an effort to solve a mystery, tell a story, and hopefully reveal secrets that even the killer couldn’t hide.
In Maggie’s experience the MEs and their counterparts were detail-oriented, efficient problem solvers, thinkers not feelers. They didn’t personalize their surgical procedures even while showing and demanding respect for the victim. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d watched a medical examiner stare down a visiting law enforcement officer who, in his own discomfort with the procedure, had made an off-color remark.
But there was something different in the way Lucy conducted business in an autopsy suite. Maggie watched as Lucy pulled a sheet off the first boy—the sheet, in and of itself, was a courtesy rarely used at this stage.
“Trevor displayed external signs of electrocution. He’s the one we examined in the forest.” She gently took his right foot in her hands, turning it slowly as if not to disturb the boy and showing the extent of the damage.
In the forest, Maggie had noticed that Trevor’s high-top sneaker had been blown off his right foot, leaving a smudge of black on his sock. Now with no shoe or sock she could see the broken blood vessels at the top of his foot and the charred leathery burn at the bottom.
“In cases of electrocution,” Lucy said, placing his foot down and going to the other end of the stainless-steel table, “the electrical current has a source point. Often the head or hands. In Trevor’s case it was up at his left shoulder.” She pointed at the obvious wound where the skin puckered red, swollen, and blistered. “The current passes through the body, usually taking the path of least resistance, choosing nerves and tissue rather than skin. The ground point is often the feet.”
She waved them closer to take a look inside his chest cavity. Maggie noticed Lucy hadn’t removed any of Trevor’s organs yet.
“Muscles contract,” she continued. “The nervous system goes haywire. Temporary paralysis results. And depending how high the voltage, organs, including the brain, can hemorrhage. As you can see.”
Donny had slid his hands into his trouser pockets. Without his Stetson Maggie thought he looked disarmed. But he didn’t seem fazed by any of this.
“This definitely wasn’t a Taser,” he said.
“No. Definitely not a Taser.”
“Any idea where the electrical current came from?” he asked.
“Take a closer look at the source point.”
Lucy’s purple-gloved finger traced over the shoulder wound. “Are either of you familiar with how lasers cut?”
She paused as Donny and Maggie exchanged a glance. The question seemed to come out of left field. Lucy didn’t wait for an answer.
“Lasers actually cut by burning or breaking apart molecules that bond tissue together. It looks like Trevor was initially cut when the electrical current hit his shoulder. Take a look.” She stood back. “It cauterizes the cuts automatically so there’s no blood.”
“You’re suggesting these two boys were hit and electrocuted by a laser beam?” Maggie asked. She didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.
“It would need to be a very intense laser pulse. But yes, that’s what I believe hit them.”
“And it just came out of the sky?”
“Or maybe a laser stun gun,” Donny said.
“Is there such a thing?”
“It uses a laser beam to ionize, if that’s the correct term.” Lucy nodded and he continued. “The ionized air produces sort of thread-like filaments of glowing plasma from the gun to the target. Supposedly you can sweep a lightning-like beam of electricity across a wide area. I can’t remember how many feet away. They call it a shock rifle. It can interrupt a vehicle’s electronic ignition system and stop it cold.”
“That would certainly explain the light show the kids talked about,” Maggie said. “But I don’t know of any available weapon like that. Are you sure you’re not just reading too many science digests, Investigator Fergussen?”
“Oh there’re available but there’s only one place I know of that would have them.”
“And where might that be?”
“The United States Department of Defense.”
CHAPTER 33
NEBRASKA
Since North Platte was an hour and a half away, Maggie called and told Lucy not to wait. She had finished the autopsy on one boy and was doing an external examination of the second when Donny and Maggie walked in.